Tuesday, August 30, 2016

06/02/16 Badlands of South Dakota

A bighorn sheep strikes a pose with the Badlands of South Dakota as a backdrop near Wall, SD

On June 2nd, I started my two-week vacation. I had high hopes of some storm chasing during the two-week trip, but for the most part worthy storms to storm chase were rather non-existent during my two week vacation. With that being said, I was already quite prepared for the lack of storms to chase on this trip so I decided I'd turn this trip into a real adventure visiting five national parks! On day 1 of my road trip, I traveled from Peoria, IL to Wall, SD to return to Badlands National Park. This park I've become a frequent visitor to over the years. I spent all day at this park with my Canon 5D Mark III photographing some wildlife and many landscapes that this park has to offer. Once the sun began to set I headed back west on I-90 to Rapid City, SD to room for the night at a Day's Inn. I've added some shots from the first day of my road trip below:

 "Scorched earth"
A close-up of a bighorn sheep!
"The Badlands"
I shot several shots of some bighorn sheep that were wandering the park on this day...
"Grazing"
"My cathedral is the Badlands"
Another bighorn sheep!
"Two paths, one destination"
They guys were quite tame which allowed you to get fairly up-close and personal with them...
A neat landscape!
Yet another close-up!
"The Badlands at sunset"

This was a fun beginning to a two week road-trip! After spending the day at this national park I would later spend a couple days at Yellowstone National Park in West Yellowstone, MT. I'll add photos from those couple days in an upcoming post.